Please Forgive Me
by not falling in love
Summary: What if...? Set towards the end of New Moon, hence spoilery. Written from Edward's point of view: What if the pain was too much?


_A/N: This is something I wrote for a contest. Sadly, the contest was cancelled due a lack of interest. This, however, did not stop me from posting this fic!_

_This is set towards the end of New Moon, and I based this on Edward's line after Italy: "I knew it was only a matter of time before I came back to you", or something to that effect. _

_Please read and review; as you know, critique and praise are the writer's lifeblood._

I stood outside the Swan house, and I looked up at the dark window. Bella's window.

My common sense was telling me that this was endangering her. I had sworn to her that I'd leave her alone. I had sworn that I'd take my dark shadow out of her sunlit life; that I'd leave her to make her own choices, and to lead a life with a soul.

The thing was, no matter what I had sworn, the pain was just too much. There was a chunk of me that I had left in Bella's keeping; I suspected that it was my heart. Even though the organ in question hadn't actually _worked_ in the past century, I could feel that it was missing from my chest. No matter what I had promised her, I had come to realize one thing: My existence meant absolutely _nothing_ without her. She had become a part of me, and it took months of being without her to make me realize this.

I silently let myself into the house. Everything was silent, except for the buzz of the fridge, and the sound of human breathing from upstairs. I quickly scaled the stairs, and opened the door to Bella's bedroom.

Nothing had changed. The moonlight slanted into the room in the exact same way, pooling on Bella's face. I could see the dark circles under her eyes, the way she had lost weight. Despite this, she was as – even _more_ – beautiful as she had been when I left. My eyes devoured her. I could hear her heart, beating steadily and slowly. I could feel her warmth like the sun on my face. I could smell her scent, intensely strong in the room, and I breathed it in greedily. It was like a balm, soothing my pain and even going part of the way to heal the cavity in my chest.

She turned in her sleep, and I froze. What if she woke up? What if she saw me here? What would I say? Would she ever forgive me? I wasn't even sure if she still loved me; I couldn't even contemplate what pain finding out that she didn't would cause me. I deliberately steered my thoughts away from that notion.

Seemingly of its own accord, my arm reached out to touch her cheek. It was warm, as always, and my eyes picked out the natural blush on her skin. Softly, as lightly as I could, I stroked her face. My fingers tingled as if I was touching an electric current.

With a great effort, I stopped touching her. I couldn't stay; she would never have me back. _I_ could never come to terms with the fact I would be stealing her soul. Maybe it was just never meant to be in the first place.

All of a sudden, the rhythm of her breathing changed. I looked down fearfully at her, my mind not even registering what that might mean. Then, her eyes opened. I had forgotten how beautiful her eyes were. Deep and warm, they reflected me in the moonlight.

She regarded me sleepily. I didn't even have the presence of mind to run out of her room, so that she might think that I was just an imagining. She looked at me, and I looked at her. I wished so hard that she could just forget what I had done to her, and everything could go back as it was. I forgot her soul, I forgot _everything_, in the consuming desire of that wish.

"This is an unusually life-like hallucination," she said to herself. She put a hand up to her cheek, the one that I had just stroked. "In fact, I think this is the best one yet," she mused.

I stayed completely still, not even allowing myself to wonder what she meant.

Slowly, she lifted herself out of her bed and took two steps towards me. I took a half-step back, and then couldn't bring myself to go any further away from her.

Bella extended an arm tentatively. She brushed my face, down from my forehead to my chin. I shivered, but I still couldn't move.

"He feels real too," she said wonderingly.

And then she encircled me in her arms.

Almost painfully, my heart catapulted back into my chest. For the first time in ages, I felt _alive_. My arms came up to embrace her. I pushed my face into her shoulder and breathed in the wonderful fragrance of her skin, just as she was breathing in mine. I knew in that moment that I could never be parted from her ever again.

"Edward?" she asked.

"Yes?" I answered softly.

"Are you real?" She sounded very cautious.

"Yes," I said.

"Are you going to leave?" The cautiousness in her voice turned to raw terror. I felt tainted, to inspire such fear.

"No," I said, and I made each word a promise: "I'll never leave you, ever, ever, _ever_ again."

I paused, listening to the sound of her heart accelerating. I stepped back from her, and tilted her chin up with one hand. The sight of her looking at me with such trust, as if my words erased everything, gave me an ache in my throat.

"Bella, can you ever forgive me?" I still wasn't sure that I was exonerated.

She smiled, and it lit up her face in the way that I loved. "Yes," she breathed, "as long as you stay, I'll forgive you everything."

"I love you," I said, feeling a surge of the emotion.

She stepped forward to embrace me again. "When you told me you didn't, you broke my heart." She leant back and kissed me, very quickly, on the lips. "I love you too."


End file.
